The identity of a "self-delusional", unremorseful sporting coach who carried out years of "insidious" abuse against an aspiring child athlete can finally be revealed.
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Richard Andrew Lucas faced the ACT Magistrates Court on Wednesday, when he escaped serving any more time behind bars for the predatory crimes he has repeatedly attempted to "intellectualise".
Ahead of sentencing the former university educator and athletics coach, magistrate James Lawton revoked a non-publication order suppressing Lucas' name.
The offender previously admitted to several charges, including multiple counts of committing an act of indecency on a child under special care.
Lucas has essentially indicated his pleas, entered on the day of his hearing, "were ones of convenience".
Prosecutor David Swan previously told the court Lucas had shown no insight into his sexual crimes.
Mr Lawton said the maximum penalty of seven years imprisonment for the charges reflected "the power imbalance inherent in such relationships and the corresponding vulnerability of the child where the relationship of trust is abused".
Some of the charges are rolled up to reflect several crimes.
The magistrate said the offending needed to be properly denounced to deter other abusive coaches "given the harm from this conduct", before handing Lucas a two-year jail sentence, suspended from Wednesday.
The sentence factored in the seven days Lucas had already spent in custody and included a three-year good behaviour order.
'Selfish, conniving and evil'
Lucas' victim dreamt of playing sport for Australia and regularly felt she could not reject the conduct of her "trusted coach" out of fear he would stop helping her.
In January, she told the court the man was "selfish, conniving and evil".
"He deserves to be punished for his actions because I will never be able to re-write my past or continue my future without forgetting," she said in a victim impact statement.
"[Lucas] single-handedly reached through time and changed the course of my life forever.
"There's not a day that goes by where I don't think of him and his manipulative, deceptive and obsessive nature towards myself."
The abuse
Lucas abused his coaching position as a way to manipulate the victim and find ways for the pair to be alone together.
That, the court previously heard, was the most "insidious part of this offending".
The abuse began in recent years when the girl was aged under 16 and her parents hired the man to be a specialist athletics coach.
A pre-sentence report author found Lucas became obsessed with the child.
He found ways to involve himself in more and more aspects of her life and would organise for the pair to spend hours together on a daily basis, eventually without the girl's parents knowing.
He initially tricked the victim into touching her through purported physio "assessments" and made her engage in highly inappropriate and sexualised conversations.
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Lucas' offending escalated to asking the victim to fill out a "sexual arousal questionnaire", repeatedly suggesting they have sex, sharing details of his sexual history and asking about her own.
The coach would eventually profess his love for the victim and threaten to leave the country "if there was nothing between them".
Lucas has maintained his crimes, under the guise of training, were not for his own sexual gratification, despite numerous diary entries which would suggest the opposite.
His supervised good behaviour order is set to end in May 2027.
- Support is available for those who may be distressed. Phone Lifeline 13 11 14; Bravehearts 1800 272 831; Blue Knot Foundation 1300 657 380.
Tim Piccione
Tim is a journalist with the Canberra Times covering the ACT courts. He came to the nation's capital via the Daily Advertiser in Wagga. Contact: tim.piccione@canberratimes.com.au.
Tim is a journalist with the Canberra Times covering the ACT courts. He came to the nation's capital via the Daily Advertiser in Wagga. Contact: tim.piccione@canberratimes.com.au.
